April 26th
by hostilecrayon
Summary: It's been 10 years and Heero remembers.


Title: April 26th  
Paring: 1x2  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: I don't own GW. If I did, the boys would have had some very interesting encounters in the series.  
Summary: It's been 10 years, and Heero remembers.

Author's Notes: This one goes out to sakushablue, whose fic "Of Things Long Since" made me so incredibly melancholy that I felt the tremendous need to write a 'Of Things Passed - Heero's Pain' ficlet.

Don't worry people, I made some progress on 'A Teenager in Cliche' today. It's just that this idea overwhelmed me, and being it only took an hour to write, it wasn't too time consuming, ne?

So without further babbling, here's a melancholy story written off the top of my head on a very strong whim.**  
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**April 26th**

I can't believe he's gone. Even though it was ten years ago this very day, I feel the water build up and spill out of my eyes as I stare at the clock. April 26th, AC 205 at precisely 10:47 AM. It's now April 26th, AC 215, and the minute hand is just clicking into place at 10:47 AM.

They say losing someone gets easier with time. They say the pain will dull over the years, but at this time every year, I prove them wrong. This very moment holds all that I have lost in it. It holds everything I held sacred and the only thing I ever believed in. Holds it tight, keeping it painfully from my grasp, ever taunting me. Every year, right when I think it's taken all of me, I lose another piece of myself.

It was something so simple. A bomb, just like the ones we used to set, went off in his building. It's intention was to kill a high ranking politician that Duo worked with. They accomplished their mission, but Duo just happened to be delivering some paperwork to him at the exact moment it exploded. Out of all the times we've been marked, the God of Death is killed by a bomb that wasn't even meant for him. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, they told me.

That didn't stop me from hunting down his killers. They paid for their crime in full.

That didn't fix anything though. With Duo's killers dead, I had nothing left to do. After the war, my mission became pleasing Duo. It was a mission that was never supposed to end. I gave him seven years of my life, and he gave me more than I could ever explain.

He taught me how to live for myself, to let go of the mission and be 'laid back', as he called it. He showed me that I wasn't just a soldier, but a human being capable of human emotion. I learned how to hold a conversation, something so simple, yet at one point, this feat had escaped me. He showed me how to laugh, to really laugh, so hard and so much that it left my body shaking and my eyes swimming in tears. He pulled down my walls, one by one, extracting me from my facade, both opening me up to fear and quelling it at the same time.

I won't say we never fought. But he never lied to me, ever so straight forward, and he was quick to forgive and forget, understanding that I was still an irritable prick back then. He had some annoying habits that really grated on my nerves, but I grew to understand it was part of his personality. And as we got closer, he told me all the horrifying truths of his past and what he called 'the art of living on the streets'. It was then that I realized his loud mouth and his annoying habits were ways to hide from that past. They never bothered me again.

But he's gone now, and all I have left are memories of him chewing on his pencil and wrapping his braid around his fist. I'll never see his eyes light up when I agree to watching old B movies with him, never again feel his gentle caresses when we are in the bedroom. He'll never come home much later than I approve of, and he won't come home on Sundays with long stories about all the kids at the orphanage. In fact, he'll never come home again at all.

I'm not so sure how much longer I can endure this pain. But I have to live, if for no reason other than Duo wanted me to. His entire objective with me was to teach me to live. When I finally learned what he had to show me, when I could finally see the beauty of the world, he died.

Things aren't beautiful anymore. Things will never be beautiful again. When those violet eyes closed, never to open again, it was as if someone had closed mine, as well. Everything is grey and translucent. Nothing has substance. I realized somewhere along the way that I only saw beauty because Duo carried it with him.

I'm just not strong enough to carry it with me alone.

I'll keep on living until this life sees it fit to allow me the release of death. I'm sure this is some kind of penance for all the horrible things I did during the war, and I often wonder how many people I have turned into me by killing their Duo. The number is probably in the triple digits, if not much higher.

I spend all my time working at the orphanage Duo opened nearly 15 years ago, still trying to please the braided angel. If there is any such thing as heaven, I know he's watching me, and I couldn't bring myself to let him down.

Though he'd probably still be upset with me, proclaiming that I'm not really living, which is true. But how can I live without him? I can barely keep moving. There's no way I could go out and have any kind of life. Each and everyday is filled with thoughts of him. Trowa, Quatre and Wufei come to visit sometimes, often offering their condolences, but they are just reminders of the past, of what I've lost. The conversations aren't quite the same without Duo's loud, obnoxious jokes and purposefully irritating nicknames. He talked more than any of us, and we often find ourselves lost without him to lead the group, picking topics at random and rambling on happily, his eyes twinkling with each story he animatedly tells.

The minute has passed now, the clock not phased in the least by what it has just nonchalantly ticked past. I wipe my eyes and get up, turning towards the hallway to make my way to the bathroom to blow my now running nose. Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see chestnut hair shine in the sunlight pouring through the window, a light glow outlining a lithe frame.

I whirl around, even though I know he's not there. I'm right, he's not, but I feel just a little warmer, my theory of him watching over me just a little stronger. Even if it was a trick of the light, I smile. He loved it when I would smile. "I love you." I say to the empty air, but the atmosphere is heavier now, and though it's probably my imagination, I think I see the sun ray where I thought I had seen him brighten ever so slightly before returning to its original state. Like I said, it's probably all in my head, but I choose to believe in it. I have to, this theory is the only thing that keeps me alive and sane.

Today, I will go on living.

For him.


End file.
